


Homesick

by mneiai



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Gen, Pandaria, Vol'jin: Shadow of the Horde
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 19:22:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14244069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mneiai/pseuds/mneiai
Summary: There was only so much he could do to help.





	Homesick

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd
> 
> Zandali is marked like *Zandali dialogue*

Vol’jin seemed distracted. Of course, that didn’t mean Tyrathan was having an easy time winning the game, but...he could see little slips that Vol’jin normally avoided. They had been sitting in silence for half an hour, the Pandarans around them weaving in and out of the library, subtly watching.

“*Your move*,” Tyrathan stated, casually, in Zandali.

“*I be knowing that*,” Vol’jin replied in kind, and the next few rounds went nearly the same, with Tyrathan not sure if Vol’jin even noticing they switched languages.

Something about it, though, seemed to be drawing Vol’jin from his reclusive thoughts, so Tyrathan continued with it. Homesickness, he thought, listening to the words come so much easier out of Vol’jin than they did in Common. They rarely had true conversations, reserving those for when they were necessary, but by the end of the game Tyrathan had found out a little more about Vol’jin’s home, about the difference between the Echo Isles and his original home.

The next day, Tyrathan did the same, as soon as he noticed that Vol’jin still had a taciturn air about him. 

“*Your Zandali be more fluent than I be even suspecting,*” Vol’jin put in, randomly, as they packed the game away.

Tyrathan ducked his head, shrugging. “*I be telling you, I be good with languages.*”

Vol’jin opened his mouth and Tyrathan wondered what would come out of it, if he would tell Tyrathan to stop or thank him for the little piece of home he could get in the foreign land. But instead Vol’jin said nothing and left for his training soon after.

***

Vol’jin set the cloth down with a huff (that was very much not a sneeze). “I be feeling ya judging me from dere, human.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just...have you never dusted, before?”

“Dere be better tings ta do wit my time!” he protested, as Tyrathan set down his broom and joined him at the shelf.

“You seem distracted.”

“Ya be pointing out da obvious.”

Tyrathan rolled his eyes at him, picking up the cloth and carefully wiping it over the shelf so that only a small amount of dust could escape into the air around them. “More distracted than normal.”

Shrugging, Vol’jin observed the movements of Tyrathan’s hands, how casually he performed all of the chores set about for him, and was reminded again that this man was of no meaningful rank to the humans, that he was a peasant among them. He would never understand how humans worked, how they allowed their nobles to be pampered and complacent while skilled, intelligent men like Tyrathan were used as tools.

Those thoughts distracted him from his earlier ones, though only for a few moments.

“*Thinking about home*?” Tyrathan asked, Zandali rolling off his tongue, as melodic as any troll’s voice.

Well, a troll who wasn’t Vol’jin’, with his damaged throat. “*And if I be so*?”

“*I would not be judging you for it, you be caring for your people, worried for them*.” Tyrathan handed the cloth back over, hesitantly setting his hand on top of Vol’jin’s much larger one and moving it in the closest approximation to his motions that a troll’s hand could make. 

After the first time Tyrathan had touched him, and been reprimanded for it, there had been a long period without physical contact. It was only after Vol’jin had gone into Tyrathan’s mind that that had eased, because to be so close to another being made resisting physical contact seem silly.

“*I be always worried for them, we be so few, and Garrosh be...Garrosh.*”

“*They be survivors, they be getting through this.*”

This wasn’t the first time they’d conferred in Zandali and something about it always eased a tension inside of Vol’jin. Tyrathan’s Zandali was clearly changing, slipping into the Darkspear dialect of Vol’jin’s own, and he couldn’t find himself angry at being used to further Tyrathan’s troll knowledge. He wasn’t even sure if that’s why Tyrathan was emulating him.

“*They be trolls, they be not getting wiped out by this. But there be more to life than survival.*”

Vol’jin looked down at Tyrathan’s face, feeling that careful touch on him, wondering how to make the human remember that.


End file.
